Hill fort said to be where King Arthur's Guinevere was born has lasted 3,000 years... under siege

Guardian UK ^ | Saturday, June 27, 2015 | Robin Stummer

[SunkenCiv]

A powerful group of senior archaeologists are sharpening their trowels to fight "ethically unacceptable" plans they say will destroy one of the nation's greatest Iron Age treasures.

Old Oswestry Hill Fort, an imposing ancient feature that dominates the skyline on the fringe of the Shropshire market town, is on the frontline of an increasingly bitter struggle pitting historians and residents against the local authority and central government.

At stake is the ancient rural surroundings of the hill fort, an elaborate, 3,000-year-old earthwork dubbed "the Stonehenge of the Iron Age". It is said to have been the birthplace of Queen Ganhumara -- Guinevere of Arthurian legend -- and was familiar to first world war poet Wilfred Owen, who is thought to have trained in trench fighting there before his posting to the western front.

Shropshire council is intent on pushing through a housing development abutting the fringe of the hill fort -- which is a scheduled ancient monument in the care of Historic England -- citing government targets for new builds. Land immediately surrounding the 13-acre hill fort has no statutory protection.

Earlier this month, the planning inspectorate approved an application to build 117 homes just metres from the outer perimeter of the fort, despite a petition opposing the scheme signed by 8,000 local people, and a large body of expert opinion on the exceptional importance of the site and its surrounding landscape.

Senior historians, led by two of Britain's leading archaeologists, fear the government is using the battle over Old Oswestry Hill Fort as a "stalking horse" to test the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), introduced in 2012 to speed up development schemes such as housing, roads and high-speed rail lines.

[SunkenCiv]

Also, I’d add that, if David Cameron had lost the recent election, these oh-so-concerned activists would be running the bulldozers to level the entire site right now.

[Humal]

We in Florida have our ancient sites and peoples too. (See http://prehistoricflorida.org/indigenous-peoples-of-florida/) The problem is that when a site is found, often it is either destroyed, covered up, or the articles taken in an effort to hide the discovery from archeologists. This is done to open the area for development. Sickening IMO.

During my teaching years, we would take the students to the Outdoor Classroom. One of the activities was to seine for sharks’ teeth. We found them in abundance and camels’ teeth. It always amazed me to think that sharks were that far in-land. I can’t explain the camels’ teeth.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Humal.

[octex]

It always amazed me to think that sharks were that far in-land.
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Born and grew up in Dallas TX. As a Boy Scout, we would hike from Camp Wisdom in SW Dallas to Mountain Creek Lake on the W edge of Dallas next to Grand Prairie. Our destination at the lake was called “Sharks Tooth”, and was a mound of dark dirt that we would dig into and find teeth. ...I still have one over an inch long that I found there over 60 years ago.

This area is around 300 miles NORTH of the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston TX, and is further evidence that the ocean waters once covered the land here in North Central Texas.

[mass55th]

Have you seen this:

Camel-Llama Fossils

[submarinerswife]

You have to love government set quotas on housing. History and local opposition be damned.

Obama is trying to do the same exact thing.

[SunkenCiv]

The British need more housing, but they have a lot of ancient obstacles in the ground. One of the complaints noted in the 2013 article is, that the new housing units would just be snapped up by people wanting a weekend getaway or a holiday rental business. The response of course is, so what? If there weren’t so many people laying down in front of the bulldozers, housing prices would come down and there would be plenty of housing. The market for holiday rentals would also fall. Instead, supply remains tight, demand remains strong.

[Humal]

No, I haven’t seen this or even heard of this. Saved it. Thank you for sending it.

[Humal]

Fascinating. I have seen maps of Florida’s coastlines through the ages, but never Texas’. At one point Florida was completely underwater except for the panhandle. I’ve heard Florida described as being like a cork floating on the water. It would be interesting to see a world map of the coastlines of all countries over the millennia.